Overture
by The Readers Muse
Summary: What other secrets was he hiding?


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Star Wars. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Set post-SW: TFA. I wanted to write something that involved a bloody Hux impressing Kylo, so here we are.

 **Warnings:** canon appropriate violence, blood, injury, drama, dub-con mind shopping, Kylo is AROUSED, Hux gives as good as he gets in a fight to the death, author is having like five moments about bloody!hux being a vicious little animal, pre-slash, past child abuse.

 **Overture**

He tugged uselessly on his bonds. Trying and failing to reach out for the force as something within the seemingly primitive, stone-ringed circle canceled his ability put an end to this foolishness right here and now. Not that he wasn't enjoying the view, however. He had to admit that Hux had surprised him. Stripped of his boots, his uniform and more importantly- his authority. Forced to grapple like a heathen for the right to live when their mission to the planet's surface had gone from bad to worse.

He felt the grunting-whoosh as the air in Hux's lungs exited in a rush. Charging the natural eddies as he was thrown bodily to the ground. Crowd cheering raucously. Catching Hux's eye, the other bruised and swollen shut, before the man rolled swiftly to the right. Tossing a handful of sand into his opponent's eyes and wrenching himself away from the kick that would have probably broken ribs if it'd connected.

A fierce, and strangely proud smile flirted with the points of his eye teeth as Hux rolled to his feet. Spitting a mouthful of red into the sand with a disdainful sneer. Wiping at the blood-tinted spittle with the back of his hand as the man's chest - sun-burned and mottled with blooming bruises and awkward freckles - rose and fell exaggeratedly.

Still, it was a losing battle.

If he didn't get free, eventually Hux was going to tire and die and then it would be his turn.

But Hux wasn't ready to give up.

Not yet anyway.

For now he was an antiquated vision squinting into the harsh desert sun. Keeping his fists up and his chin jutted as he lashed out with the solid plane of his palm. Not his fist like so many naïve, plebeian fighters were accustomed to doing. Hearing something crack in his opponent's nose and gush blood as the larger man howled in pain.

More than anything he didn't understand it.

 _How he could have missed this?_

This physical ferocity and raw rage lurking just underneath the polished image Hux presented to the world. It translated into a feeling. An introduction. Something that made a part of him he'd never paid much attention sit up and take note.

 _How had he been so completely fooled?_  
He'd believed Hux beneath him.

Flawed.

Small.

Impotent.

 _What other secrets was he hiding?_ _  
_  
He'd find them.

That much he'd already promised himself.

He was going tease out every artery.

Every inch the man kept safe inside and expose it.

 _Revel in it._

He was going to steal it all for his very own.

The predator that lived under his skin practically _purred._

Vibrations teased across the cracked skin of his heels as Hux took a trio of brutal punches and absorbed them. Letting the other fighter get close enough before he snapped his head up in a brutal headbutt. Sending them both to the ground as Hux let go of a ragged sound. Something between a growl and a scream.

He reached out without thinking.

Wanting the man's thoughts.

Surprised inspite of himself when he realized the two things in quick succession. First, the field that kept him from calling out to the force was weakening. And second- for the first time since he'd known him, Hux's mind was completely open.

He fell greedily.

The world tinted red. Jagged with pitfalls and traps designed to wound and capture dotted the landscape of Hux's mind. A startling vista of smoke, metal and distant stony peaks capped in ice that never melted. Here it was always winter. Inhospitable. Inhabitable. Lonely. Dangerous. Where there was only one path and he would have to forge it for himself.

 _'Careful, Ren.'_ _  
_  
The voice was from the past and the present all at once. Knowing somehow that Hux knew. That Hux _knew_ he was being watched. _Knew_ he was inside his head. _Knew_ he was parsing through his memories at his own leisure. The sky-line of Hux's mind flashed thunder bolts. Hitting the memories around him with electric charges of molten soil and deep-earth poison. Opening up viscous pits spitting acid and noxious smoke all around him. Daring him to try and go deeper. To-

A woman laughed. Warped and soft with memory as she whirled gracefully around a table. Translucent and pale as her white dress flared - billowing prettily around the ankles as a young, red haired boy clapped happily from the couch.

 _Mother._

It was the last time she danced for him.

It was the last time for a lot of things.

And it was the last time he saw her.

The boy grew up, but his father never smiled.

Mouth angry.

Yelling.

Spittle leaking from the corners.

 _Worthless!_

The sting of a belt.

 _Weak!_

Then a fist.

 _Sickly!_

Then the punishing weight of a baton against pale skin.

 _Silence!_

Then-

Back in the present, outside the suffocating dark of their conjoined minds, the crowd cheered and Hux bled. He could feel it distantly. The pulsing beat of pain and rage that hummed like a second heartbeat. Part of Hux fed off it. He didn't like the pain, nor did he covet it. But it gave him strength. It cut through the austere layers and forced him to show himself to the world.

The small red-haired boy became a man that planned and schemed and dreamt of a world- _no-_ a universe created by his own hand. Something ordered and absolute. Something that he could watch grow and spread. Something he could control. Something-

He was expelled from his mind with a rough shove. Tumbling free as a strange darkness nipped at his heels. Threatening to suck him under as the metal buildings and fire-streaked skyline of Hux's mind started to bleed.  
He only understood when he blinked and realized Hux was slumped unconscious across the sand. Bleeding. Muscles lax. Sand clinging to the bloody wet of his lower lip like even this force forsaken planet wanted him. His lip lifted in a silent snarl. Because the jealousy was like _kriffing_ heartburn. Only appeased by what registered seconds later. Caught in the way one of the man's hands had been left outstretched. Fingers crooked with splintering breaks that sharded out of the skin. Spidered towards him like grasping for him had been Hux's last conscious thought. Reaching like a silent demand as the remaining fighter beat his ugly chest and riled up the crowd. Chanting in a frenzy of sound for the final blow that would decide the match.

His hair fell lank and dark in front of his eyes in a sudden wind. Smelling the humid taint of sewage and a hundred thousand years of bad choices and regrets as the darkness in him coiled dangerously tight. Watching through the strings of his hair as the large grey-scaled humanoid lounging on a throne at the head of the circle nodded to the ugly, towering lump that'd finally knocked the General out. Gesturing grandly and dropping a golden credit in the sand as the thing grinned and snatched it. Turning on it's stubby heel to look back at-  
 _  
_ _They were going to kill him._

 _Kill Hux._

He snarled the same time his bonds broke. Snapping as the dampener that kept him from being one with the force shattered the same moment the heralding wail of a T.I.E fighter - proof enough that the First Order had found them - made the surrounding crowd start to panic.

But when his lightsaber flew to his hand and he cut through the thing who'd dared look at Hux's with his death in their eyes, the panic screamed to a sudden, raucous, _glorious_ crescendo.

He left none alive.

* * *

He carried Hux into the rescue transport himself. Marveling at how light someone who thought in metal and complex minerals could be. Someone that could hold their own not just with their mind, but with their fists and teeth.

Finding himself coming to a strange and somewhat staggering realization as the medical droids whisked Hux away as soon as they docked with the Finalizer. Following sedate and almost reverent in their wake as he allowed the thoughts room to grow.

Deciding that perhaps Hux had kept fighting because he hadn't been born to die quietly. He won – even when he lost - because he truly didn't know how to lose. Because failure wasn't an option. It wasn't penciled in or scheduled or even on his mental list of possible scenarios to overcome.

Because the truth was, Hux hadn't been born so much as he'd been sculpted. Created. Manufactured. A machination of his father's perfect image. Hux had been born to be one achievement amongst many. But he'd made a fatal mistake. He'd become more successful than his father and far more quickly. And thus his father had scorned him. But instead of letting that disapproval chip away at him, Hux let it push him _higher_. Working harder, faster and more brilliantly than all his peers to succeed until one day it was finally enough. And the boy with the orange-red hair who'd disobeyed his parents and run though the mud-puddles just for the sheer joy of it could muster up barely a whimper in his defense. Too changed by the years and the hardness of his adult ambitions to even recognize himself.

 _Controlling little sadist that he was._

Only problem was, that last part had come out almost fond.

He took a deep breath, feeling something shift, then give way completely. Reaching _outoutout_ until he found Hux's mind - open and vulnerable as his body bobbed in a bacta tank half a ship away. Cradling his consciousness in his own as he crooned careful endearments. Staying just out of range of the bared teeth. Daring him to put another toe out of line. Promising pain and bloodshed even as the darkest part of Hux brushed up against his like the arching spine of a feral cat. Content to allow the affection.

 _For now._ _  
_  
And for the first time in a long time, his wants danced and writhed in his dreams as flesh.

* * *

He was used to getting what he wanted.

But then again, so was Hux.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.


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